Mike Sweeney
Well-Known Member
Dribbling DeOxit down a Marantx speaker switch or one of the many others is a time honored tradition for us that restore these beasts. But, if you take one apart, you will find that is probably not the best way to fix them. That is assuming that A: you have a newer switch and B: you don't mind very tedious work with dangerously small parts.
The older switches are glued together so taking them apart is problematic. But they have the same issue as the newer ones.
The issue is how the switch is made on the inside. It's is two parallel rails with two or four sliding clips face down on the rail. I have never seen any kind of grease/lube or whatnot inside of these yet. What I have seen is where the very tiny contacts have corroded because they are not moved very often and they have been in less than optimal environmental conditions. No amount of dribbling DeOxit will clean these. Even flooding or what you think is a soaking flood may not actually get into the contacts since they are upside down. You can see the construction method prevents a good soaking without a bit of luck. Not to say it wont work, it will in a pinch and I've done it successfully but I've used the D100L which has the needle applicator so I can precisely target the application around the shaft. And it takes patience to let enough wick into the switch to be effective. This did NOT work on the three I've mentioned with corrosion issues. Those had to be manually burnished clean.
I put a ruler so you can see the scale we are working with here. I cannot strongly enough suggest buying some spares for parts if you decide to take one of these apart. I've had to do this three times now due to a missing clip ( no click) and due to crappy contacts. In each case, I take them apart and scrub the contacts with DeOxit and a wooden shaft QTip then use a dab of DeOxit non-conducting grease to A: hold the bloody clip in place and B: Provide constant cleaning/lube from now on.
The easiest way was to remove the switch boards ( two were speaker boards, one was a filter switch) then desolder the switch from the PWB and operate on it. I did this at my kitchen table with strong lighting vs my cluttered bench and the part eating concrete floor
The older switches are glued together so taking them apart is problematic. But they have the same issue as the newer ones.
The issue is how the switch is made on the inside. It's is two parallel rails with two or four sliding clips face down on the rail. I have never seen any kind of grease/lube or whatnot inside of these yet. What I have seen is where the very tiny contacts have corroded because they are not moved very often and they have been in less than optimal environmental conditions. No amount of dribbling DeOxit will clean these. Even flooding or what you think is a soaking flood may not actually get into the contacts since they are upside down. You can see the construction method prevents a good soaking without a bit of luck. Not to say it wont work, it will in a pinch and I've done it successfully but I've used the D100L which has the needle applicator so I can precisely target the application around the shaft. And it takes patience to let enough wick into the switch to be effective. This did NOT work on the three I've mentioned with corrosion issues. Those had to be manually burnished clean.
I put a ruler so you can see the scale we are working with here. I cannot strongly enough suggest buying some spares for parts if you decide to take one of these apart. I've had to do this three times now due to a missing clip ( no click) and due to crappy contacts. In each case, I take them apart and scrub the contacts with DeOxit and a wooden shaft QTip then use a dab of DeOxit non-conducting grease to A: hold the bloody clip in place and B: Provide constant cleaning/lube from now on.
The easiest way was to remove the switch boards ( two were speaker boards, one was a filter switch) then desolder the switch from the PWB and operate on it. I did this at my kitchen table with strong lighting vs my cluttered bench and the part eating concrete floor
I've seen people drill holes which I think is a terrible idea given the odds of a piece of plastic shaving getting inside and jamming up the works.
